


Better in Blue

by TeamGwenee



Series: The Kingslayer's Captive [5]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:41:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25069324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeamGwenee/pseuds/TeamGwenee
Summary: Jaime returns to the Red Keep to face his family.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth, minor Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister - Relationship
Series: The Kingslayer's Captive [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1814104
Comments: 7
Kudos: 83





	Better in Blue

**Author's Note:**

> Edited and re-posted. 
> 
> Thanks to everyone who has been reading this series, and to everyone who has liked and left comments! Hope you enjoy :)

Tywin Lannister's pride in his golden boy had been the closest thing he had known to love ever since his wife died. He despised the sight of his youngest boy because it was everything a Lannister was not meant to be. He recognised his daughter as the most beautiful woman in the realm, but saw little other use for her. Jaime, golden, valiant Jaime, was the glory of House Lannister, the pride of the West.

And yet, as he looked at the scars of his eldest boy's hand, triumph glittered in the gold flecks of Tywin Lannister’s eyes. 

“You are no use to Joffrey, a cripple in the Kingsguard. If you wish to do your duty, accept your place as my heir and go to Casterly Rock to rule as the lord you were always meant to be. 

He was not wrong. That was the worst part. But Jaime wasn’t going to let his shame be Tywin’s victory. 

Jaime was a Lannister. And Lannisters were proud, strong and spiteful. Jaime’s pride was gone. HIs strength maimed. But her had his spite, and he threw his spite right into his father’s face.

~

Cersei’s eyes blazed bright and cruel as wildfire as she looked at his scars. Her fury carried a weight from his heart. No wonder he could not picture softness in her eyes. Cersei was a lioness.They did not turn gentle in the face of their beloved’s suffering. They grew vicious. They bared their teeth, drew their claws, and roared. 

She was so beautiful, so golden and so near. Just within an arm’s reach.

Cersei reared back, her face curdling in horror. Her repulsed eyes were fixed upon Jaime’s scarred hand as though her was offering her the corpse of a rotting infant. 

“Put your glove back on!” she hissed in disgust.

Jaime paused, his arms empty, reaching out pathetically like a beggar. 

He looked at Cersei, waiting for her to say something, to take the sting out of her words.

She drew herself to her fully height, back straight and chin tilted. A queen to the core, waiting to be obeyed.

Jaime thinned his lips and arched an eyebrow, tugging his slick leather glove back onto his hand. Only then did she allow him to take her into his arms, just as he dreamed of all those lonely nights on the road.

She held herself stiff and cold, and when he went to stroke her cheek she jerked her head away sharply.

One soul. One soul in two bodies. They were a part of each other.

But Jaime could see it clear. He was maimed, and broken and diminished. And Cersei would not allow herself to be part of anything that was not pure gold.

~

There was empathy in Tyrion’s green eyes, and bitter mirth in his black. It took a single look for Jaime’s clever little brother to gauge Jaime’s black spirits, and their cause.

“Oh Jaime,” Tyrion said as he poured Jaime a glass of wine, not without sympathy, “Cersei never could stand ugliness. No more than she can weakness. Lannisters are beautiful and strong.”  
  


“So now I am to hide a part of myself to be worthy of her presence?” Jaime spat.

“At least you can hide,” Tyrion pointed out, not unfairly.

~

Jaime found Brienne in her tower cell. At his orders she had been made comfortable. There was a small table by the window, overlooking the sea. Her bed was large and well stuffed, the sheets clean, the blankets thick. Several good, beeswax candles sat on a chest by her bed, to burn throughout the night. And the fireplace was piled high with coal and kindling, ready to be lit should she feel a chill. And after he vouched for her good behaviour on the road, he ensured she would have freedom of the castle and its grounds. But she had yet to venture forth, preferring to in from her rooms.

“I have nothing fit to wear,” Brienne admitted sheepishly. “It seems noble ladies cannot go about court in breeches, and all the dresses bought for me are far too big.”

She wore a simple green cloth dress, cut for a woman wide and shorter than she was. Her ankles were full on display, and the sagging waist pulled in by a rope belt. She had tucked a woollen shawl over her shoulders and crossed it into her belt, covering the small breasts peeking through her gaping bodice, and protecting her modesty.

She looked ludicrous, but Jaime found himself feeling ludicrously comforted by the sight of her.

“I will speak to a seamstress to conjure something more fitting. You are being treated well?” Jaime enquired, taking a seat with Brienne at her small table by the window.

Brienne modded, looking at her hands. “Everyone has been very kind,” she said politely.

Jaime snorted. “You’re a hopeless liar,” he told her. “Kind, or just not blatantly cruel?”

“They have not laughed at me or mocked me,” Brienne said honestly. “They were good enough to keep any insults behind my back. That is all I can hope for.”

“You and me both,” Jaime said with a smile.

Cersei didn’t even do him the courtesy of pretending not to be disgusted by the sight of his hand. He will always have to hide a part of himself from her. She had no interest in the lesser parts of him, only the beautiful and strong. 

It struck Jaime that Cersei had never cared to ask Jaime why he killed the Mad King. She had never asked him about that night, in fact. Never been interested. 

He saw Brienne watching him, wide eyed and guileless. He remembered how steadfastly she helped the Maester tend to his wounds, not once flinching at the sight of blood and flesh stripped of skin and thw white bone. How she looked upon his scarred hand with neither pity nor horror. Just a gentle grief for his suffering, and a staunch belief that Jaime would recover from this loss, even if his hand did not.

“Do you remember when you questioned if there are any good lords, good kings?” Jaime asked.

Brienne blinked at the change of topic. “Yes,” she said uncertainly.

“I don’t know if there are any truly good kings, but I know that there were kings worse than others,” Jaime said softly. “And Aerys was the worst of them.”

Once Jaime had finishing telling his tale, Brienne’s face was white as chalk, and Jaime’s hands trembled.

“I don’t regret killing him,” Jaime admitted, his jaw clenching and lips curling in memory of the barbarous king. “I only regret I didn’t kill him sooner, the first time I heard Queen Rhaella scream from behind closed doors.”

He looked Brienne square in the eye, looking for some truth in those gentle blue depths. He needed to know. Needed her to say it.

“Do you, do you think I made the right choice?” he asked.

If Brienne thought he did, if someone like Brienne could say Jaime was right to break his vow, the heartfelt conviction that Jaime carried with him all these years, that he had needed to believe so greatly he could not bear to speak lest it be questioned would be vindicated.

Brienne blinked, and reached out to take Jaime’s scarred hand into her own.

“I do,” she said. “I, I suppose there are times when, when even the most sacred and solemn of vows, cannot be kept. So yes, yes I think you did the right thing.” 

Jaime allowed Brienne to keep his hand in her gentle hold for a while longer, before pulling it back and rising to his feet.

“I will go speak to the seamstress, get you some decent things made” he told her. He hesitated at the door, his voice caught in his throat, searching for the words. In the end all he could say was “I will tell her to make them blue.” 


End file.
